Kara

Kara Labs engineers single-crystal diamond: substrates, engineered layers, membranes, and thermal materials. Specified, grown, and characterized.

At YC S26 Demo Day on September 10, 2026, Aaron Edell reports that Kara has $160 million in letters of intent. Kara’s YC launch describes custom samples under pilot agreements and purchase orders, but does not corroborate the reported total. The letters of intent indicate prospective demand, not revenue or a confirmed backlog.

Sep 2026Dealroom.coNews article

Ultra pure diamond wafers for data centers. $160M in LOIs already. Is silicon dead? Kara @ycombinator demo day is [diamond emoji]

Sep 2026Aaron Edell (@aaronedell)External social post

Kara is developing diamond semiconductor technology for computing systems with increasing heat and power demands. The company bets on diamond’s ability to handle those conditions, with its founders describing a shift from placing diamond beside a chip to making diamond the chip. During YC, Paul Graham pushed Kara’s founders to define the larger idea behind several possible products, and they settled on building the diamond semiconductor.

Sep 2026ForbesNews article

Kara Labs is a YC S26 startup aiming to make diamond wafers. An independent note traces July MPCVD-specialist outreach and a six-week gap before launch. It cites the founders’ backgrounds in diamond operations, Berkeley Lab quantum sensing, and computer science and AI at Amazon, plus YC partner Brad Flora. YC’s standard deal is $500,000 ($125,000 for 7% and a $375,000 uncapped MFN SAFE); the note lacks reactor-count, impurity, thermal-conductivity and yield data.

Aug 2026Wonsen Research (Company Cases)News article